How is donated sperm used?

Donated sperm (sperm not from your partner), can be used in many types of fertility treatment. The donated sperm is used to fertilise an egg either inside the woman’s body (as in the case of intrauterine insemination (IUI) or in the laboratory, in the case of in vitro fertilisation (IVF).

Is using donated sperm for me?

Using donated sperm is a major decision and you should take your time. You may want to discuss your feelings with friends, family or a professional counsellor before proceeding.

Using donated sperm in your treatment may be recommended if:

using your partner’s sperm would be unlikely to be successful because your partner:

all donors go through stringent screening checks to ensure they are not carrying infections, such as HIV, Hepatitis B and C, cytomegalovirus(CMV), syphilis and gonorrhoea. Donated sperm is quarantined for six months whilst the donor is being screened

there are limits on the numbers of families created by each donor where sperm are used to treat you at a licensed clinic.

Obtaining sperm via the web

There are an increasing number of websites which offer services which match women with sperm donors. Donors and recipients may then meet and arrange insemination privately, without attending a clinic. If you are considering using these services it is important to bear in mind the very real risks and consequences of obtaining sperm in this way.

The safest and most reliable way of obtaining sperm from a donor is via a clinic that is licensed, inspected and regulated by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA). The Authority is the UK’s independent regulator of treatment using eggs, sperm and embryos.

Licensed clinics must meet standards set by the Authority (outlined in the HFEA Code of Practice) and they must supply information about treatments, patients, donors, gametes (sperm and eggs) and children conceived which is kept on the HFEA’s Register.

If you obtain sperm from a web-based service, you may be putting yourself at serious risk. It’s worth bearing the following points in mind:

If you have treatment outside a licensed clinic the legal situation regarding who the second parent of the child will be is complicated. For example:

- The donor may be the legal father of any child born. The law says a man donating sperm through an HFEA-licensed clinic is not the legal father of any child born through that donation (this includes cases where the donor is known to the recipient). However, when donation occurs outside a licensed clinic, this guarantee does not exist.

- In cases where a female couple, who are not civil partners, have treatment outside a licensed clinic, the law does not recognise the female partner as the second parent

There is a risk that the sperm may not come from the person whose picture or details you saw on the website.

The donor may not have been properly screened before donating. This means that there is a risk that sexually transmitted infections, including HIV may be passed on to you, and that serious inherited medical conditions may be passed on to your child.

The children who are born following unlicensed donation will not have an official way of finding out their genetic origins, as the HFEA will not hold information about their donor on its Register.

If the donor receives payments above the amounts permitted by the Authority, then licensed clinics may not be able to provide treatment with sperm from that donor at a later date.

Our advice is simple. Only use a licensed clinic. That way, you can be assured that all the quality checks and legal requirements have been met.

Your child’s siblings

Having more than one child from the same donor - you should be able to use the same donor for more than one insemination, provided the sperm is available and the donor consents.

You should let your clinic know that you may want to use the same donor in the future.

Limits on the number of siblings - in the UK, a donor’s sperm may be used to create up to ten families excluding their own. Your children may share a partial genetic link with children in up to ten other families.

In other countries the same limit does not apply, so if you use donated sperm from abroad many more children may be genetically linked to your child.

Withdrawing consent - the sperm donor can change his mind at any time about the use of his donated sperm. In IVF this would apply up to the point of embryo transfer. This also applies to any surplus embryos resulting from the sperm donation that you have had frozen for your future use.

Telling your child about their origins

If your child, or children, were conceived as a result of assisted conception, telling them about their origins can be a sensitive topic to discuss. However, if done honestly and if discussed at the right time, the issue need not be a difficult one to broach.